BUSINESS NEWS : There’s New MTV--(Mall TV)--on the Air

As shopping malls across the country try to lure customers with extras ranging from skating rinks to fancy food courts to roller coasters, one local mall is sending out another message: It’s OK to stay home.

Puente Hills Mall in the City of Industry last week launched a shop-by-cable TV service, where mall-weary customers can just plop down in front of their own television sets and watch as a peppy hostess pitches diamond rings, video games, baby clothes and other items from mall stores.

The program is believed to be the first of its kind in Southern California, according to marketing consultants and mall officials.

Puente Hills marketing director Terry Migliaccio said the cable service, which reaches 127,000 subscribers in the San Gabriel Valley and surrounding areas, will help his mall tap into a vast local market of mall-haters who would rather stay home than deal with the noise, parking problems and teeny-bopper crowds that characterize regional malls.

The first “Puente Hills Mall Shopping Tour” offered, among other goods, a $6.99 hand mirror from Romeo’s Beauty World, a $14 personalized lunch pail from Y Grow Up, $62 boat loafers from Castelby Shoes and, for the more extravagant, a $1,959 diamond ring from Classic Gems.

Four cable companies are carrying the weekly, hourlong program on a trial basis this month. If all goes well, the program will be aired four times a year and will be geared toward holiday seasons, Migliaccio said.

Viewers in 28 communities, including Pasadena, Pomona, West Covina and Whittier, can call the mall at (818) 965-5875 to find out the channel and time for the show in their area. The mall also has taken out newspaper ads publicizing the program.

“We’re not trying to propose that nobody go shopping at the mall anymore, that everyone stay at home,” Migliaccio said. “This is just another convenience for people whose schedules don’t let them shop (in a mall).”

But Paul Barnard, a New York-based retail marketing consultant, said the ploy goes against traditional mall marketing strategies.

“It strikes me as odd that here is a mall that is essentially making it possible for people to buy an item or two without going to the mall,” said Barnard, publisher of Retail Marketing Report, an industry magazine. “This seems to be in contradiction to the purpose of a mall, which is to bring in as much traffic as possible, to expose the visitor to the widest possible array of offerings.”

Linda Hyde, who has researched the home shopping industry for the marketing research and consulting firm Management Horizons, a division of Price-Waterhouse, also had reservations.

“I’m a little skeptical they would do much business that way,” she said. “The biggest barrier that I see is all you can do as a consumer is react to what’s put in front of you. Most people don’t have time to sit in front of the TV set day after day to wait to see what shows up.”

But, Hyde added, plugging products over the television from well-known stores in a local mall might prove more successful than other home shopping services, which aren’t linked to a mall with an established reputation.

When the national Home Shopping Network began several years ago, “a lot of consumers who were catalogue and mail-order shoppers were at first quite reluctant to call and give their credit card number over the phone line,” Hyde said.

Mall shopping by television “might have more credibility because it would be someone in your local market, as opposed to a company who’s doing this on its own and is not known to the consumer,” she said.

The program is one of a number of measures the 17-year-old mall is taking to boost its image in a sagging retail market. Puente Hills, which in 1989 ranked 10th in sales volume among Los Angeles County’s 45 largest malls, recently added new escalators, planters and lights to jazz up its X-shaped interior. Soon, an antique carousel will be added to the central court.

But it remains to be seen whether the cable TV gambit will pay off. At least two of the six stores that paid $500 each to participate in the first cable shopping program are questioning the wisdom of their decision. They haven’t received any phone orders so far.

“We were really excited when it aired,” said Dorca Eacker, manager of Classic Gems. “We were waiting for someone to call.”

“I would say I’m a little bit disappointed,” said Tony Collucci, manager of Castelby Shoes. “I was hoping a lot of people would watch a lot of cable TV. We got no response. I was questioning if it was even aired or not.”